Long Range Narrow Beam Ultrasonic

[sonnyyu]

GM100DU is integrated with mOS V1.

mOS V1 Visible software
As an advanced e-product, mOSV 1.0 visible system is specified for laser measurement platform, which makes hardware and software works perfectly and allows users have amazing experience. Now the question is if mOS support USB port control.

[sirch]

How about Plan B?

Plan B;-



LR4- Interface Board for Fluke 414D  Price: $149.00

FLUKE 414D   /Newark           Price: $129.95

Total: $280.00

http://www.porcupineelectronics.com/

distance:50 M
accuracy: +/- 2.0 mm

whole thread;- http://forum.arduino.cc/index.php?topic=169393.msg1260324#msg1260324

That's the kind of solution that would be great but that's a bit too expensive for me. It seems a shame that you have to go to all that trouble to get an interface to one of these devices - just the laser device as a module (no keypad/display) with serial comms would be ideal.

[GoForSmoke]

The borehole being too crowded to use echo timing, if you put a not-large open end pipe all the way down then you could time echo inside of that. It wouldn't have to be thick or strong either.

[sonnyyu]

Who is porcupineelectronics.com?

Private, Registration PORCUPINEELECTRONICS.COM@domainsbyproxy.com
Domains By Proxy, LLC
DomainsByProxy.com
14747 N Northsight Blvd Suite 111, PMB 309
Scottsdale, Arizona 85260
United States
(480) 624-2599 Fax -- (480) 624-2598

http://who.godaddy.com/whoischeck.aspx?domain=PORCUPINEELECTRONICS.COM

Why private registration?

Take look inside;-



Now you should have a clue why an egg cost more than a hen. $149.00 v.s. $129.95

[sirch]

Sorry to resurrect an old thread but I have finally got this built, tested and written up so I thought I'd put a link up here to the article in case it is of any help to anyone

http://interestingto.me.uk/Open%20Source/adventures-ultsasonics

[cr0sh]

Sorry to resurrect an old thread but I have finally got this built, tested and written up so I thought I'd put a link up here to the article in case it is of any help to anyone

http://interestingto.me.uk/Open%20Source/adventures-ultsasonics

It would be interesting to know more details behind the beam-forming; your article only details a simple ultrasonic sensor setup, but doesn't give any details (other than a picture of the 7-element array) that would facilitate others to build and experiment with it.

You know - the common refrain here, "post your schematics - post your code".

So I am curious why you didn't post this information in the article?

[jremington]

I second the above request for more information. Did you optimize the phase shifting in the receiver array to form the tightest beam, or is that just done by positioning the detector elements? The link to the online calculator didn't work for me.

On the topic of hackable laser rangefinders, recently some cheaper versions have become available, and one of them, the Uni-T UT380B (available for $60 from dx.com), has an easily accessible serial port that outputs the measurement. Range finding can be initiated via the keyboard connector. Here are the details: http://blog.qartis.com/arduino-laser-distance-meter/ So, you can have a self-contained computerized module that does not need to be read by a human. The UT380B is supposedly accurate to +/- 2 mm, up to 45 m. I just got mine from DX.com, and it seems to be very well made and reasonably rugged. I haven't hacked into it yet, but that is on the list.

[sirch]

cr0sh - I didn't post it because there is nothing to it, 7 ultrasonic transducers in parallel with a 1mH inductor in series. The size of  the inductor depends on the capacitance of the particular transducers you ar using. Yee I could spend another precious day writing a better article but no one would look at it. It's  easier to answer subsidiary questions when the occur. It would, of course have been a lot easier to post nothing...

jremington - thanks, that's interesting, that unit wasn't available when I was looking (over a year ago). My experience with those kind of devices is that taking a readings is quite slow (they have to modulate the laser beam at several different frequencies and take readings at each) so scanning it around could also be slow.

[dc42]

Sorry to resurrect an old thread but I have finally got this built, tested and written up so I thought I'd put a link up here to the article in case it is of any help to anyone

http://interestingto.me.uk/Open%20Source/adventures-ultsasonics

Nice! Have you thought about taking reflective measurements by using a single beam-forming array for both transmission and reception?

[sirch]

Thought about it but not tried it. From rough surfaces it could be challenging to find the reflection with a narrow beamwidth receiver.

[dc42]

Thought about it but not tried it. From rough surfaces it could be challenging to find the reflection with a narrow beamwidth receiver.

That's why I suggested using just one array for both transmission and reception.

[jremington]

The correct link for the phased array antenna calculator is http://www.ze38.com/planar-phased-array-antenna-calculator.htm
(dashes instead of underscores).

The Uni-T UT380B laser rangefinder measures about 3 distances/second.

[cr0sh]

cr0sh - I didn't post it because there is nothing to it, 7 ultrasonic transducers in parallel with a 1mH inductor in series. The size of  the inductor depends on the capacitance of the particular transducers you ar using.

My apologies; upon re-reading that section, I can see now that you set it up for "fixed" beam-forming. I'd be really curious about the electronic steering part; changing the amplitude of the output pulses electronically would be an interesting expansion - I wonder if changing the timing of the pulses would have any useful effect (or just result in a garbled reception). Lot's of room for experimentation, I suppose.

[sirch]

Changing the phase of the pulses at each transducer in a coordianted way allows the beam to be steered -i.e. the far-field maximum would not be down the centre line of the array. I guess for it to be really significant you would need many more transducers.